Rob Across America

The 8600-Mile Journey Home (From Home)

1 May 2008

Philadelphia, PA—

I am taking the month of May to drive across the country and back. I got tired of the fact that friends from abroad have seen more of the States than I have, and this year is something of a crossroads for me for a few reasons, so the time seems right. Since I design web sites, it made sense to put one together to document the trip, so that’s what you’re looking at. It was going to have a lot more stuff, but as time started running out, features started disappearing, and as interactive maps, geo-coded comment systems, and testing in a certain majority market-share browser fell under the axe, I was happy to discover that I didn’t miss them. What remains are the bare essentials—blog posts—and I hope to write one each day. And since this will be the only post written moments before leaving my home for a month after staying up all night to launch this site, I’m pretty confident the posts to come will be more entertaining than this one. So I hope you’ll stick around and share the experience with me.

Here’s where I’m going, and when I’m going there:

Washington, DC

Petersburg, KY

Nashville, TN

New Orleans, LA

New Orleans, LA

Austin, TX

El Paso, TX

Albuquerque, NM

Grand Canyon, AZ

Grand Canyon, AZ

Las Vegas, NV

Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles, CA

San Simeon, CA

San Francisco, CA

San Francisco, CA

Portland, OR

Seattle, WA

Seattle, WA

Butte, MT

Yellowstone National Park, WY

Yellowstone National Park, WY

Mount Rushmore, SD

Minneapolis, MN

Chicago, IL

Chicago, IL

Sandusky, OH

Cleveland, OH

Stockbridge, MA

Boston, MA

New York, NY

I’m hoping to visit with a lot of friends on this trip, so if I’m coming near you and you expect to hear from me, you probably will if you haven’t already. But keep an eye on my Twitter feed (which will probably be integrated into this site soon enough) just to be safe—I have a ton of people to keep track of, and if you don’t hear from me directly, it’s not because I don’t want to see you. It’s because I still feel awkward about that thing that happened in Paris…

Okay, I’m out the door. Take care, Philadelphia; I’ll see you in June!